Project Description

Project Overview

Coldwater Golf Club is an 18-hole, par-72 course that sits along the edge of the Agua Fria River and Wildlife Corridor in the west valley area of Phoenix, Arizona. The course serves as a recreation greenbelt for the Coldwater Community.

This residential-based course meanders through a quiet neighborhood. The routing was devised to offer efficient lot frontage while keeping some holes together for wider corridors.

The course plays to a back yardage of approximately 6,900-yards. Holes vary in direction, length and type. The general fee of the course is defined by large features — massive dunes-like features — that form interesting fairway and approach contours. Interestingly, the course features only 20 sand bunkers throughout the 18-holes.

“Our concept at Coldwater was to focus on the ground game,” notes Forrest Richardson. “We said, ‘look, every course can have bunkers’ — they are the crutch of modern course design. Instead, what we decided to do was use interesting slopes, ridges and ripples at every landing area and green.”

Coldwater involved earthmoving totaling more than 1.5 million cubic yards. The entire grading plan for the community was driven by the golf course design. Residential lots needed to be raised. Accordingly, the golf course architect became the solution. By lowering fairways and holes — literally carving away the once flat, agricultural land — we were able to create an interesting golf course, and at the same time, generate fill material needed to generate revenue from lots.

Among Coldwater’s hallmark holes are No. 5, a “Sahara” par-3 with a huge waste area fronting the green complex; No. 8, a short 100-yard par-3 across water to a three level green; No. 9, a bottle necked par-4; No. 11, a ‘ying-yang’ par-5 which dog-legs left, yet slopes entirely to the right along its full length; and No. 15, a short par-4 guarded by a massive sand bunker flanked with railroad tie sleepers.